1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a stopping device, and in particular, to a stopping device capable of keeping an object intact and a multi-function peripheral (MFP) using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
With the advent of information society, an office may be provided with office automation equipments such as a scanner, a photocopier, and a printer. A user may perform word processing by the aid of the office automation equipment. It should be noted that, when the office automation equipments are configured in an office at the same time, a lot of space is occupied. Therefore, an MFP integrated with, for example, photocopying, printing, and scanning functions, is developed to solve the above problem.
The user usually places a stack of paper in the MFP for use for photocopying, printing, or scanning. The MFP needs a stopping device, so as to precisely stop the paper before the paper is fed into the MFP. A conventional stopping device of the MFP uses a gear to drive a rack, so as to move a paper stopping plate up and down to stop or allow the paper to pass through. However, in the method using the rack, space is required to be reserved in the MFP for the movement of the rack in a perpendicular direction, thus causing limitation to design height, and waste of space, thereby the overall volume of the MFP cannot be decreased effectively.
In addition, another conventional stopping device uses a motor, a spring, a paper fetching arm, a stopping arm, and a restricting point, which work in a combined manner to achieve an effect of stopping or allowing the paper to pass through. However, the spring may become fatigued sometime, reverse rotation with wrong step number of the motor may occur sometime, and thus the paper stopping plate and the stopping arm cannot be restored in positions thereof, and the stopping device fails. Alternatively, when a case of the MFP is opened, the paper stopping function is still kept, in this case, if the paper is still under the paper stopping plate, the paper may be torn.